"Acquiescence"
Elizabeth is ten years old, and she's staring down at the grave of her best friend. Her cousin. Her future-that-might-have-been-but-never-would-be husband. And it's all so wrong. So confusingly, horrifyingly, nauseatingly wrong. Ciel was good. He was one of, if not the nicest people that Lizzy had ever met. Nicer than Edward or Daddy, who doted, or Auntie Ann, who gave her gifts and advice in turn, or even endlessly-cheerful Auntie Rachel, who was also gone. Gone. Along with Uncle Vincent, who was Mother's younger brother—and Lizzy can't even imagine loosing Edward, she has no idea how Mother had only cried once—and who had always seemed to defrost and become whole around his family. And Elizabeth would miss her aunt and uncle terribly, she already did, but Ciel was the one she couldn't get over. He had been her world, her rock, her cute little champion and confidant. And she wasn't sure that she ever wanted to get over his death, either, if it meant accepting that the loss of someone so precious and innocent was any kind of okay.
A/N: Hmm, about Francis, this from Lizzy's POV, and her mother doesn't strike me as the type of person who would willingly show weakness, especially in front of people who need her to be strong. who's to say that she didn't cry when she was alone, though?
"Acquiescence:" because she could not